Beets

I haven't posted much this month because I'm slightly burned out on writing. I just finished a major redesign on my website (you can see it here www.joycarroll.net) which I'm really happy with but it took a lot out of me (20 years of work are reflected on it).

While I was immersed in the website, I had little attention for anything else besides my practice.

Fortunately, my vegetable garden requires little of me beside watering, and I managed to keep up on that.

So when I came home from work Thursday night, I was able to head out to the garden and pick a couple of beets for dinner.

I grew these beets from seed, which impresses me. Most seeds I plant never show up.

We ate the beets less than 2 hours after I picked them, and Larry commented on how tender they were. This is a guy who used to avoid beets before he met me. He has since learned to enjoy them in small amounts, but he has never before called them tender. There is nothing like homegrown food!

I cut the leaves from the roots and cooked them separately. The roots were scrubbed and put in a covered casserole in the toaster oven at 375°F for about 45 minutes until they were tender. I then peeled them and we ate them with butter and salt and pepper. Yum.

The leaves I washed, cut off the long stems, and combined with turnips greens and radish greens from the farmers market. I sautéed some onion in olive oil, threw in the washed and chopped greens, stirred in salt and pepper, put the lid on, and let it cook 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the greens were wilted and delicious.

I had found some lentil loaf in the freezer the night before, and defrosted it overnight in the fridge. I shaped it into burgers and fried it in a little olive oil. Along with some mashed potatoes and the beets and greens, it made for excellent and healthy comfort food.

Why avoid gmos

I haven't written much about genetically-modified organisms because they just make me mad.

But driving home yesterday I heard an excellent interview on Ian Masters's show (kpfk pacifica radio) about the side effects of gmos as discovered through animal research, and how these studies are systematically suppressed.

My favorite line came in reference to last year's failed campaign to require labeling of gmo foods in California.

Monsanto and other agribusiness campaigned heavily to not require gmo labeling. Yet if gmos were really good for us, then companies would be rushing to label their food "contains gmos" and would see an upsurge in consumer purchasing. After all, it's worked in the organic marketplace. All sorts of companies are using organic ingredients so they can get that all-important "Organic" on their label and boost sales. Somehow, despite huge advertising blitzes, agribusiness has not been able to convince consumers that eating gmos is a good thing. So they have to hide their franken-ingredients instead of promote them.

(The sad thing, of course, is that they're hiding them in everything. If you eat non-organic wheat, corn, soy, or corn syrup - you're eating gmos. And natural flavorings can be genetically modified - and can contain animal parts. If you're eating restaurant or packaged food in America, you're eating gmos.)

You can listen to the podcast of the interview by clicking here or by going to ianmasters.com and scrolling to the April 10, 2013 show - it's the 3rd segment that is on gmos.